Surviving 66
by Spark Vallen
Summary: Episode III of original character Falco Volt's journey as a Jedi.  Order 66 has been executed and yet, a pocket of Jedi have survived.  Where will they go?  What will they do?
1. Chapter 1

**Coruscant - Jedi Temple**

Not every Jedi who had been in the Jedi Temple when _Darth Vader _had come calling had fought and perished. There happened to be a small pocket of Jedi, one Knight and two Padawan Learners who had been in the subterranean laundry facility who had been fortunate to escape the horrors that transpired on the upper levels. They'd _felt _what had happened on the many floors above, but they'd gone unnoticed thanks to the quick thinking of the Jedi Knight who'd been assigned to oversee their punishment chores.

They'd been in the laundry area, a place restricted to service staff and droids almost exclusively, because the two Padawans had caused a bit of chaos days earlier. Nearly Knights themselves, Falco Volt and Siri Sarae had made a small wager. Their bet? Falco had been certain that he could rig the laundry chutes with a little bit of programming so that his best friend, Siri, could drop through the chute from their quarters all the way down to the laundry facility without being caught by a sensor that would otherwise shoot her off to a different chamber altogether where her little stunt would be _caught_.

Though Siri didn't usually fall into such schemes as Falco devised, this time, she'd been too curious to see if her friend could pull it off to refuse. Unfortunately, in the moment, though fortunately for them overall, they'd been caught in the act. Jedi Knight Dee Horn just happened to come up the corridor to find Falco trying to delicately stuff Siri into the laundry chute! That had earned both Padawans an evening of punishment in the laundry room with Dee as their reluctant enforcer.

"Darkness…" Falco said in his deep voice at the very same moment Siri voiced it in her tinny, high-pitched voice.

Dee's dark eyes widened as her senses were assaulted by the malignant presence above. She wanted to say _Skywalker _but it didn't make any sense! Everyone knew that their oft-classmate Anakin was rebellious, but a Sith?!

"Move. We have to move now."

"But our--" Siri started to say, referring to their detention.

She stopped, seeing the look of horror in the Knight's eyes. Something bad was happening on the upper levels of the Jedi Temple. Something unspeakably horrible. And the trio realized that it was a greater evil than they could hope to stand against, at least for now.

Siri hurried after Dee and Falco who had already gone into motion, sprinting for the emergency exit stairwell. It was a seldom traveled route for the Jedi Temple rarely had emergencies. Why would it? It was the helm of the Jedi Order.

_And it's about to be slagged_, Falco thought, his mind spinning with horror. Without knowing what was going on for sure on the floors above, he didn't even know why he thought that; he only knew it was the truth.

Dee cut the door open with her lightsaber when she found its mechanism jammed. Surely, it would show that someones had escaped, but for now, there was no other alternative. She and the Padawans raced up the stairwell to the next level up, then shot through a series of interconnected storerooms that ran the perimeter of that level. Both Padawans wanted to ask Dee where she was leading them as these were parts of the Temple that were off-limits to Jedi students. They didn't dare ask for now, nor would Dee have bothered to waste time explaining just how she knew these routes at this point.

It only mattered that Jedi Horn knew that one of the storerooms had a false wall with an exterior door that led to the Coruscant sewer system. Some Jedi had evidently installed it as a secret way in and out of the Temple and Dee was going to make use of that knowledge now to save her life as well as the Padawans in her charge. Working the computerized combination on the door with practiced ease, the door creaked open and Dee all but Force Pushed Falco and Siri onto the narrow sewer catwalk outside. Whispering a prayer for those Jedi she knew were dying on the levels above, she stepped through as well and sealed the door behind her.

Falco was as white as a new-born wampa, his look almost sickly. Beside him, the tiny Siri didn't look much better, her cast a pale green compared to her usual brownish look. Shock had not quite yet struck the young Knight, luckily, and she snapped at them with a harsh whisper. "This way! And do not, under any circumstances, use the Force now!"

They proceeded in the near-darkness through the sewer system, following behind Dee. Green lichen that grew along the curved walls provided an eerie light, saving them the need to use glowrods or lightsabers for illumination. They did their best to make their footfalls light on the grated metal of the catwalk but still, they could be heard. There was no escaping that. The trio simply had to pray that the Force wouldn't have taken them out of the Temple only to have them destroyed in the sewer system!

Dee found it curious, after several hours of marching in a random, confusing route through the sewer system, that Siri would whisper a single comment to Falco. It echoed her earlier sensation that Anakin had somehow been involved in the atrocities. She'd whispered, "Told you not to compare yourself to Anakin…"

* * *

**Yavin IV - Temple of the Blue Leaf Cluster**

_Where do shattered hearts go? Where do you go and what do you do when all you've known has been destroyed? How do you go forward? To what?_

Such were the thoughts of the newly knighted Jedi, Spark Vallen, as she collapsed onto her knees in the jungle surrounding the Temple of the Blue Leaf Cluster. Fate was on her side that her mission to the jungle moon of Yavin had _nothing _at all to do with the war while so many of her fellow Jedi had just been cut down by their loyal Clone Troopers across the galaxy. Though she was light-years away, the Empath _felt _the deaths as personally as if she herself had also been cut down.

Shrouded in the mist of the humid morning, Spark's tears were indistinguishable from the moisture that clung to her face. She'd lost all track of time as she reeled with anguish and horror, kneeling in the mud while the morning mist finely coated her dark tunic and pants and her tightly braided hair. The Jedi Knight had no idea what had happened across the galaxy for certain. Spark could only feel that hundreds, if not thousands, of Jedi had died, leaving a gaping hole in the Force that pounded with every beat of her heart.

Some time later, her comlink chirped with a message she never thought she'd hear broadcast. An emergency. All Jedi were to return to the Temple on Coruscant. Immediately. Spark stared at the noisy object in her palm, one that had taken her some time fumbling before she'd managed to get the comlink out of her pocket. She stared at it in a daze before finally turning it off.

_Go back? To WHAT? I can feel that they're all dead… _

Spark moaned incoherently and stuffed the comlink back into her pocket. She forced herself onto her feet some unknown time later, if for no other reason than that her body had started to ache with disuse and the disconcerting sensation of jungle bugs trying to chew through her leggings freaked her out.

She stared at the ancient Temple of the Blue Leaf Cluster, a smaller but no less awe-inspiring structure created by the ancient race, Massassi, eons earlier. It had withstood untold circumstances, untold horrors. Spark tried to draw strength from that fact as she tried to contemplate what to do now. The emergency beacon told her to head back to the Jedi Temple immediately. Spark knew with every fibre of her being that if she did, it would be the last decision she ever made.

_But if I did go there, then I wouldn't have to worry about the scarier prospect, would I? What do I do if I am the only remaining Jedi now?_

* * *

**Tatooine - Mos Eisley**

Though it was considered part of the Code that no Jedi learn about their biological heritage or seek out kin, Jedi Knight Sapharin had made the lonely trek to Tatooine, the place where she'd been born. To be fair, she did have official Jedi business that had taken her there at first; once that mission had been completed though, she should have headed immediately back to Coruscant. If she had, however, she would have returned at just about the moment that Anakin Skywalker and his troops stormed the Temple. It was fortunate for Sapharin that her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she'd disobeyed a Jedi mandate. That decision had saved her life.

A contemporary to the likes of Dee Horn, Falco Volt, Siri Sarae and Spark Vallen, they had all trained at the Temple at the same time. It was only that their Trials and knighthood ceremonies had taken place at different times. Sapharin had been a Jedi Knight the longest of their bunch, followed by Dee and Spark who were knighted on the same day. Falco and Siri were weeks away from their Trials when the Jedi Order had perished and their delay was simply an administrative error within the Temple databanks.

Sapharin had been inside the Mos Eisley Cantina, a dreary place where one found it difficult to breathe unless one was already well used to the acrid and pungent smoke made by deathsticks. Garbed in non-descript Tatooine-style attire with her lightsaber hilt well-hidden in the folds of her clothing, Sapharin looked like any other local who was trying to stay away from the scorching wrath of the Twin Suns. The surly bartender, a young man called Wuher, had flipped on the subspace HoloNet which normally featured re-run holo-dramas and sporting event scores. The latter was popular with the many gamblers the cantina attracted. This day, however…

"We have breaking news from Coruscant! We go live by hover-cam to a scene of destruction. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't even know how to describe this to you. I must forewarn you that the images you're about to see are graphic and very disturbing…"

The reporter's voice had drifted off as recent shots of the Jedi Temple afire were shown. For Sapharin, she couldn't have known that the reporter had chosen to stop talking for all the sounds of the cantina had been drowned out by the pounding of blood in her ears and the roar of the Force in her consciousness as she suddenly understood the headaches she'd been having and the feeling of things being _wrong_.

She must have fainted, she realized, for Sapharin found herself being forcibly sat up while Wuher yelled, "Don't ya dare puke on my floor, hear me! I swear you'll clean it up!" As he turned away from her, he was still rattling on about "stupid women, unable t'hold down a simple, watered down drink." Of course, Sapharin hadn't touched a drop of the foul brew in the first place and Wuher had remained oblivious to what had _really _caused to pass out.

By the time the Knight was on her feet, Wuher had changed the HoloNet station, having decided that "that kinda bad news was bad for business." Sapharin blindly stumbled for the door, exiting the cantina quicker than her eyes could adjust to the harsh, blinding suns at midday. She groped her way toward the so-called hotel where she'd been staying, hoping that she could grab the rest of her gear before she had to flee. Just as Dee had understood on Coruscant, if the Jedi were being exterminated, she wasn't safe at all where she'd been.

"Where do I go now?" she whispered.

There wasn't much for Sapharin to gather from her tiny room; Jedi were trained to travel light and minimize possessions anyway. She slipped the satchel over her shoulders and carried the staff that she'd purchased from a vendor earlier in the week; its tip poked lightly into the hard-packed sand with each step.


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer stuff: I'm not "Uncle George" and I don't own his characters._

**  
**

**Coruscant **

By traveling almost exclusively through the lower sewers, a foul and dangerous trek to be sure, Dee, Falco and Siri had made their way from the Jedi Temple ruins to a northern spaceport. It felt to them like they'd been traveling for days. Since they didn't dare use their comlinks, datapads or go to the surface, they weren't exactly sure how long they'd been marching through the dank duracrete system before they had emerged. When they did, they looked just as foul and bedraggled as Coruscanti who lived at the seedy bedrock area of the enormous city. They had shed their Jedi robes already to distance themselves from the image of a Jedi and their tunics and pants were so thoroughly soiled from the much they'd been forced to traverse that they no longer looked like Jedi at all.

At one point in their trek to safer ground, Falco had finally asked Dee how she knew about that secret egress point from the Temple. "So… Dee… like, we're grateful, believe me, but um… how did you know that exit was there?"

The Knight smiled wickedly and waggled her eyebrows at Falco and Siri. She replied, "You don't become a controversial student in the Temple without having a few dramas, you know…"

It was lucky for them, then, that Dee had had a tendency to sneak out of the Jedi Temple after-hours to explore Coruscant's night life. It was also fortunate for them that Falco and Siri had had their crazy stunt with the laundry chute. The Force was certainly with them.

It was evening as they made their way back up to the surface in a northerly district well away from the Jedi Temple. From where they emerged though, the trio could still see the dark, billowing smoke that spewed from the Temple's spires. They looked, grimaced and then forced themselves to look away.

Learning more about what had happened wasn't difficult. Citizens talked about two major current events: the Chancellor declaring himself Emperor and the fact that the Jedi had plotted a coup of the Republic and had been exterminated before they plot could be actualized. Dee, Falco and Siri wanted to believe that the latter was a lie spun by this new "Galactic Empire"; how could it be the truth? However, they had no real way of knowing fact from fiction since they'd been too low in the Jedi hierarchy to be privy to Council secrets and their agenda.

As they'd taken an evening meal together in an out of the way café by pooling the scant credits they had on them, it finally occurred to Falco that he and Siri had no idea what had become of their Jedi Masters.

"Master Finelli! Oh Force help me! What would have become of Master Finelli?!"

"Shhh!" Dee gave him a fierce look, risking a moment's Force use to deflect any interest from other diners on them. "Lower your frakkin' voice!" she hissed. "Or do you want to bring the Empire down on us too?"

"S-sorry. I'm sorry," he whispered, pained. "I just… I don't know where he was! He'd gone with a military unit and, like—"

"Falco." Siri's squeaky voice piped in, cutting him off. She rested a clawed, furry hand on his forearm. "We can only go forward now. Our Masters are likely with the Force. For all we know, we're the only remaining—"

Dee turned her fierce gaze on the tiny Chadra-Fan before she could say the doomed word: Jedi. It had more than occurred to Dee in their journey through the sewer system that they very well might be the only remaining Jedi. Overhearing the citizens speak about the death of the Jedi once they'd emerged only made her further convinced they could be on their own.

_What does that mean for us? If we ever reveal ourselves as Jedi, we're as good as dead. The 'Emperor' will have convinced the citizens to turn over any likely Jedi, or have them killed like wild animals. But we can't just let this all happen, can we?_

"We can't stay here much longer," Falco said suddenly. His face was ashen, but his eyes shone with determination. "It's not going to be safe no matter how big this planet is. We need to get out of here."

"Nowhere in the galaxy is safe, not if what we've heard is true," Siri interjected, her voice just above a whisper.

"Falco's right though. Coruscant isn't safe at all. Where do we go? Outer Rim?"

Siri squeaked. "How would we get there? We don't own a ship and we barely have credits to book passage…"

"Leave that to me, okay?" Falco said.

The gears had begun turning in his head. A decent pilot, but besides that, a skilled slicer and droid mechanic, Falco indeed had the mundane skills that would enable them to find a way off planet. He'd just need access to a terminal at a spaceport where he could set up a falsified reservation on a ship leaving the system. For Falco, that was nice and easy.

"Outer Rim? Corporate Sector? Where do we go?" Dee asked.

"How about Dantooine?" Falco suggested, talking with his mouth full of sandwich.

Dee and Siri exchange glances. "Why there?"

Falco blushed, color moving up his neck and onto his cheeks. "Well, um… my family is… like… from there."

They all knew that such knowledge was forbidden. The redness on his cheeks deepened as Dee and Siri gaped at him with his admission. Before they could ask _how _he'd gained such information, Falco explained.

"I… it was like a challenge for me. Like the laundry chute." Siri snickered at that and Dee lofted a chestnut eyebrow at him. "I was doing my inventory updates in the datapad in the store, and just wondered if I could… you know… get into the records in the Archives and read about myself. Like… to see what Master Fi—yeah. What he had to say about my progress and stuff. It worked. I got in and found a message, a way old one, from a Jedi called Teri Cho'din.

"She was part of the, um, 'Jedi Acquisition Team'. A group that looked for babies and little kids who were like… Force sensitive," he explained. "She was the Jedi who found me with my parents on Dantooine. For some reason, she made Master Yoda keep it in the records who my parents were, and where they could be found."

"Why?" Siri asked.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "But there it was. I'm Falco Volt Jr. apparently."

Dee sighed. Like Siri, she had no idea who were kin were and would likely never know. She forced herself to finish her meal, unsure how they were going to go about getting more to eat later with their limited credits.

"We would put your family at risk to show up there, Falco. I don't know that is a good idea," Siri said.

"Already thought of that, don't worry. After I read the record in my file, I made sure it was removed. You know like how someone had managed to erase Kamino from the Jedi Archives? Remember when that happened? I just did the same thing after I memorized the information. No one would know who they are now."

Dee nodded to Falco. "It's important for you to go there, isn't it."

He nodded with a little reluctance. "Yeah. I mean… I just lost the only family I ever knew. It's important to me."

They all looked at one another, thoughtful. No one had any better suggestion to offer. Falco and Siri looked to Dee, their nominal leader by a rank that no longer mattered. She nodded, once, to indicate that she'd go with this plan for them to travel to Dantooine if Falco could indeed arrange it.

* * *

**Tatooine – Mos Eisley spaceport**

Sapharin had never felt more alone in her life than she did now. Huddled under a thin blanket so that it even covered her head, the lonely Jedi Knight peered out with dark eyes at the foot traffic around Docking Bay 94. Her quest to seek out her kin had been abandoned in the wake of learning the disaster that had befallen the Jedi.

_None of it matters anymore… nothing… I could be the last of the Jedi and all that __**that**__ means now is that there's a death mark on me that's greater than I could ever hope to overcome… The galaxy wants my kind dead, and they've already killed us off. I'm just a living ghost._

It was a grim attitude to have, but how else could she feel?

Sapharin had taken only the most basic piloting course when she had been a student at the Jedi Temple. It was the minimum requirement. When she had become a Padawan, her Master had insisted on always using public transport rather than any shuttle provided through the Temple's hangar bay. And so, as a new Knight herself, Sapharin had kept to the tradition of using the public transports. She had _liked _that means of conveyance anyway for it allowed her to be close to the Republic citizens she was sworn to protect and serve.

The only problem now was that she wasn't sure how to travel as a commoner. Being a Jedi was all she had ever known and Sapharin wasn't quite the subtle type, at her own admission. She wasn't certain that she could blend into a crowd and seem like a Tatooine native who simply wanted to get off the dusty rock for somewhere better. And she knew all too well, thanks to the brief HoloNet report, that if she were discovered _as a Jedi _she'd be just as dead as her fellows.

_And so that means what? You're just going to sit here until you've rotted away?_

Sometimes, Sapharin really wished that quiet voice in the back of her mind would shut up and leave her alone. Rotting away with her back against the sandstone sounded like a perfectly acceptable plan, at the moment. What else was there? There was profound horror in understanding that the greatest of the Jedi Order had been slain on orders from the Chancellor-turned-_Emperor_. She knew with utmost certainty that it had all been based on lies, but who was _she _to denounce him? How could she even dream of doing that if members like Mace Windu, Yoda and the other Council members were _dead_?

So, the lone Jedi Knight remained, curled against the sandstone, wishing that she too could die and become one with the Force. Bereft of all hope, Sapharin went unnoticed by the locals and the spaceport staff. She was just a darker tan blur set against the rock wall.

Until…

A presence.

Sapharin had not consciously reached out with the Force since the HoloNet broadcast she'd seen at the cantina where she had fainted. She hadn't _dared _touch the Force, suspecting that the Emperor's spies – and she was certain they existed! – would be scouring the galaxy to find and eradicate any trained Jedi who had not been with the military or on Coruscant.

This presence washed over her senses anyway, making her catch her breath and look up. The blanket fell back from her unwashed, dark hair, revealing her face to the man before her. Sapharin barely recognized him as his hair and beard had gone stark white. He looked far older than when she'd last seen him around the Jedi Temple.

_Obi-Wan._

"Never give up hope, my friend," he said softly.

Sapharin could only stare up blankly at him, too stunned to say or do anything! She just gaped.

_He's alive! Obi-Wan Kenobi is alive! _

"_It_ will be with you, always," he added.

That left no doubt in Sapharin's mind that it was indeed Obi-Wan who had found her in the spaceport. He'd been careful not to say what "_It_" was, but Sapharin knew. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet, staring up into his defeated gaze. Trying to think how she could communicate so much of what was in her mind and heart and find a way to ask the questions she needed to ask of him about what had happened, she froze. There was just _too much_.

"Is there a plan?" was all she could manage.

Obi-Wan shrugged limply, his face betraying nothing. There was, of course, but the plan was shrouded in secrecy between himself and Master Yoda. He couldn't divulge it to another survivor; too much was at stake.

"Lie low. Learn a new way of being," he replied.

"What are you going to do?" Sapharin asked, her voice surprisingly calm to her own ears.

"Stay here."

It astonished Sapharin that Obi-Wan Kenobi, a General of the Grand Army of the Republic, would say that. That he'd offer no tangible guidance or outline a plan that the surviving Jedi could use – _What an idea! Surviving Jedi!,_ she thought – was shocking to her. That he'd plan to remain on Tatooine was ludicrous to her, though she'd been hopeless and helpless days earlier, finding resistance futile.

A part of Sapharin wanted to say that she'd accompany him then. Two heads were better than one, after all. They could keep each other company and keep the flame of the Jedi way burning, even if it had to be on backwater Tatooine. But something in her made her bite back those words.

_That's not my path, no matter what I might want, _she thought. Sapharin frowned. _I can't stay here no matter how much I want to… it's different now… knowing he lives. Others will too… somehow. The light is not out._

Obi-Wan's presence had re-sparked her determination to survive, and to fight. Sapharin's spine stiffened and she nodded solemnly.

"Be well and safe then. I know what I must do."

He nodded in reply before turning away and wandering, like a man lost, away from her.

* * *

**Hyperspace**

Although it had occurred to Spark Vallen that she could have remained effectively in hiding within any of the ancient Massassi temples scattered about Yavin IV and survived, she knew in her heart that she would have been making the wrong decision to do so. She'd stuck to her decision that staying far away from Coruscant was imperative, and had included several other Core Worlds on her personal "no-fly" list. Though she was just as lost as she'd been upon feeling the deaths of the Jedi through the Force, Spark wasn't suicidal. Anger coursed freely through her veins and through her soul, wanting to strike back at whomever had destroyed the Jedi Order. She was aware that she was likely treading a path to the Darkside of the Force, but she didn't care. Spark only wanted revenge for those who'd been slain.

It was mind-boggling still, feeling the betrayal and anguish through the Force. Even without trying to touch it consciously, it came to the Empath. That couldn't be helped. Sensing it dangerous to do anything proactive with the Force, Spark just did her best to cope with the chasm of loss that she felt as her Jedi starfighter coupled with its hyperspace ring and sent her across space.

There were many Jedi enclaves across the galaxy besides the central temple at Coruscant. She knew that none of those places would be safe if so many Jedi had been killed in one fell swoop. Instead, Spark sought out a more subtle location: Dantooine. Thousands of years earlier, there _had _been a Jedi enclave on the agrarian world. She didn't know what state its ruins were in, but she felt drawn to that remote place.


	3. Chapter 3

_All the usual disclaimers apply! ;)_

**Surviving 66.**  
-sparkvallen**  
**

* * *

**Hyperspace**

_There IS an advantage to being… short. I've just proven it. _

Obi-Wan had advised her to find a new way of being, and while it wasn't beneath a Jedi to play stowaway if the situation warranted it, it _was _a new way of behaving for the very orthodox Jedi Knight Sapharin Trefail. Used to traveling as a Jedi by public transport or Republic shuttle, when she traveled at all, finding a way to sneak aboard a smuggler's ship that was leaving Tatooine was definitely a new experience for her.

While cargo crates had been loaded aboard the YT-1300 Corellian light freighter, Sapharin had trailed alongside the crates, moved by repulsorsleds and droid control. She was careful to stay out of the way of the smuggler's view, not having to worry about the hull's low overhang thanks to her height. As soon as she had a moment to breakaway, Sapharin darted up the ramp and into the circular ship.

As the crates were hauled to the main hold, Sapharin quickly memorized the main locations of the ship that she'd need to know. The cockpit, the forward compartment, the galley and sleeping quarters… Unfortunately for her, it seemed the only likely place to hide would be a clear-unused compartment in the galley. It was small and cramped and what food had been stored in there was so far past its date that Sapharin knew she couldn't rely on it while she journeyed.

The roar of the sublight engines thrummed through the decking where she sat, and had startled her. Sapharin tucked in tighter, silently thinking on the Jedi Code and hoping the Force was with her in this grand undertaking.

At least she knew where the ship was headed: Dantooine.

Sapharin listened to the rhythms of life aboard the ship from the galley compartment, getting accustomed to the heavy booted sound of the smuggler as he moved into the galley and back out. Being that they were in hyperspace, Sapharin reasoned it safe enough to use the Force to sense his whereabouts so that she could duck out of the compartment for fresh air, for a _very quick _trip to the 'fresher. And eventually on the journey, she made a trip to a small computer console to read the HoloNet news that had been previously downloaded.

She was anxious to find out more about what had happened to the other Jedi. Obi-Wan's defeated posture had haunted her in the galley compartment more than she liked to admit. He was the great General of the Clone Wars! How could someone like Obi-Wan look so lost?

_How can someone like you hope to strike back if he won't?_

She shushed that doubt away, skimming the news headlines. Sapharin's heart sank, reading the incredible amounts of propaganda that this new Imperial Order spewed. Reports told of how the _Jedi _had tried to overthrow the Republic and _that _was why they'd been exterminated. It was on government orders, and Palpatine had become an Emperor in the process. From what she could gather, Jedi were to be arrested and killed if they sought to defend themselves.

_They're probably killed upon arrest too_, she thought. _No wonder Obi-Wan was vague._

Sapharin read on that a Darth Vader had been the man to lead troops into the Temple, bearing a lightsaber. That chilled her to the marrow of her bones, knowing that Count Dooku had been a Dark Lord of the Sith and he had been slain! Who was _this _Sith Lord who had destroyed the Jedi Way?

_No… not destroyed. Set-back, definitely._

Other Jedi enclaves across the galaxy had been razed, she read, all a part of the Emperor's plan to keep them from rising again. Sapharin knew her history that there was the ruins of a Jedi enclave at Dantooine, unused for ages. She hoped that by traveling to Dantooine, she wasn't committing herself to sudden death.

"HEY!"

As fast as she heard the shout, Sapharin ducked, the motion guided by the Force. A red blaster laser shot over her head to strike the bulkhead behind her. Years of training made her want to reach for her hidden lightsaber, but she forced herself to resist.

Forcing herself to imitate a Mos Eisley local's accent, Sapharin held up both hands as though to say "I surrender!" and said, "Hey, watch where you're shootin'! You mighta taken off my head! **I **didn't ask to be here!"

The blaster was now leveled on her chest, the smuggler's eyes dark and wary, no trace of sleep in them. "You have five seconds to explain why you're on my ship and reading _my _messages."

"I'm reading the HoloNet," she corrected matter-of-factly in spite of her circumstances, "and I just said… I didn't ask to be here. I was the manual labor at the docking bay, checkin' your inventory to make sure you got everything. _You _packed up and headed out before checkin' to see if the droids and me were off-loaded. I obviously wasn't."

It was a complete and utter lie and Sapharin didn't bother with trying to pull a Mind Trick on the smuggler. If he were too strong minded, he'd _feel _her up to no good with the Force and that would betray her identity.

"So why didn't I know you were here until now?" he asked, waving the blaster at her.

"Thought it best to stay outta sight and just slip away when you landed. Always wanted to see some other planet 'sides Tatooine."

"You and everybody else," he muttered in grudging agreement at that.

Sapharin didn't dare hope that he'd keep from shooting her with just that as a common bond. "I didn't wanna chance that you'd reverse directions and take me _back_."

The smuggler grunted. "I'm gonna have to lock you up for now."

"What could be worse than a compartment in your galley?"

It wasn't "worse," but she was surely confined, and worse, Sapharin knew she was being observed through a holocam in the secondary sleep cabin. He'd locked her in for the duration and Saph knew she had to stick to her story that she was nothing more than a grunt laborer at the docking bay back at Mos Eisley.

_I guess Obi-Wan was right that I'd have to learn a new way of life… I wonder if he meant this?!_

* * *

**Dantooine**

"Battle stations! To your stations!"

Dee and Siri gaped at Falco as he commanded them. _If _the shuttle they'd stolen ("borrowed" as Dee had insisted) had any armaments beyond a minimal shield and _if _it had any weaponry at all, they would've heeded his orders. Since they were in a scrap heap with a hyperdrive, they simply stared.

Until Dee barked at Falco at least. "Just get us ground-side, Falco! These shields aren't going to last!"

Imperial fighters with awkward panels for wings pursued, firing on them because Falco had failed to answer their questions well and then had refused to power down. Of course, he couldn't have; a ship of Jedi would be killed for certain. Now, if he didn't get them safely to the surface and away from the fighters, they were dead anyway.

"Working on it!" he shouted, twisting the protesting shuttle into a dive.

Without time to adjust the inertial dampener, gravity struck the trio hard, slamming them into their seats. They were too breathless to scream but the sublight engines did that for them, pushed to their max. The hull groaned as shields failed and laser blasts struck the durasteel. Only the fact that Falco was a Jedi-trained pilot gave him an edge in out-maneuvering the clone pilots behind them.

"Coming in too hot! Hang on!"

The shuttle was a fireball when it hit the atmosphere. Falco yelled again when systems began to overheat. The shuttle streaked across the sky with Imperial fighters close.

"Force shield yourselves!" Dee ordered, hoping that upon the inevitable impact, they could protect themselves.

It was a risk to draw on the Force like this, suspecting that Palpatine's new Order has ways of ferreting out Jedi who tried to pass as civilians. But they had little choice.

On impact, the shuttle tore up a long stretch of Dantooine soil and crops, sending a spray of earth for meters in all directions. The battered hull burst into flames as ruptured lines leaked their fluids. Inside the stolen shuttle, the cockpit's frame had held reasonably well though the viewport had shattered, spraying the Force shields and floor with shrapnel.

"Are we alive?" Siri whispered, peeking a wide eye open.

"I ache too much to be dead," Dee grumbled. When she tried to unfasten her crash webbing, she found it jammed. Hissing, Dee drew on the Force to _force _it unlocked. She stood on shaky legs, letting her shield drop. "You two okay?"

"Jittery."

They looked to Falco who was still holding onto the control yoke, his knuckles and face wampa-white. He didn't respond. Dee stepped over the glass, hearing it crunch under her boots. She tapped Falco on the shoulder. He didn't move.

"Falco Volt?"

Nothing. Dee swore under her breath. It was clear he was alive. They could see he was breathing still.

"I think he fainted," Siri offered.

"You _think?_" Dee snapped. "Clear me a path. I'll get him out of here."

She reached around Falco to unclasp his crash webbing. Before he could slump forward, Dee pulled Falco into a rescue carry, grumbling under his bulk; he stood much taller than she so the carry was awkward without drawing much on the Force.

"Hurry. Fighters on approach."

"I know. I can hear them," Dee snapped back at the little Chadra-Fan. She promised herself to apologize for her tone later. If they survived. "They're gonna vape this shuttle and us too if we're not out of it _now_."

Siri squeaked in dismay and hurried forward on her bare feet. What hadn't been securely clamped down had gone flying between Falco's daring maneuvers and the crash itself. Siri shoved what she could and used the Force to move the rest. The ramp had jammed and the two Jedi realized that with the impact, the ramp was lower than ground-level.

"I'll cut us an exit," Dee said grimly.

Unshouldering Falco and propping him up against the bulkhead, Siri kept watching over her best friend while Dee drew her lightsaber. The smell of the hull and protective layers burning around them was strong here and she did her best to hurry, shoving her lightsaber blade into the opposite bulkhead and beginning to carve a doorway.

"Hurry!" Siri cried. She looked in horror toward the back of the shuttle as it erupted in flames.

"Hurrying…"

Sweeping her blade in an arc, Dee managed to cut just enough to get them through if they pushed and pulled Falco through the opening. She and Siri both knew this wasn't much of an escape. Once they were visible to the fighters circling, they'd have to fight their way through them too.

"Wake up, Falco!" Siri squeaked.

She pinched his face and his side with her clawed hands. He grumbled as though he were sound asleep and she were disturbing him. That made Siri redouble her efforts as Dee gave a triumphant cry and hurled the cutwork out onto the charred and smoking soil.

"Is he awake? Get him moving. Now!"

Stumbling and protesting, Falco pushed his way through the impromptu hatch right behind Dee. He turned back to help Siri navigate the gap. The trio ran from the burning shuttle and had no choice but to activate their lightsabers as a volley of high powered laser blasts came raining down on them from above.

The refugee Jedi discovered _that _plan was not going to work at all when Falco tried to deflect the crimson bolt of energy and had his lightsaber _yanked _from his hands by sheer force.

"Uh… not good," he said, rubbing his wrists. Falco summoned the hilt back to his hand and kept running.

Seeing that they were outmatched to deflect the blasts with their sabers, Siri and Dee hastily retracted their blades as well. It became a "game" of dodging the blaster fire from the sky while they tried to come up with a new plan.

"Like… use the Force. Visualize the fighters and just… crumple them with the Force," Falco shouted.

And to demonstrate, he looked up at the lead ship and manipulated the air around it. It didn't so much crumple but lose rapid control and go into a spin, careening over their heads and into a sloping hill. Dee and Siri followed suit, creating air pockets in the Force that sent the fighters out of control and to their own fiery demise.

Slumping with exhaustion despite the adrenaline rush as the last fighter crashed, Dee shook her head at the other two. "I could have lived without going through all of this!"

Falco couldn't help it. That made him laugh. Soon, Siri and Dee joined in, celebrating their survival.

Elsewhere on Dantooine, Spark Vallen had already landed her Jedi starfighter. She'd come in on the night-side of the planet and in truth, she had the antics and adventure of fellow Jedi to thank for the ease in her approach and landing. The Imperial picket had been too distracted by the shuttle chase to pay any mind to a small, falsely transponding ship.

Spark destroyed the computer system after deleting all the files on her starfighter to ensure that, when found, it would yield nothing of use to the Empire. Then, the Knight stripped the ship of what she thought could be needful for later. There was no droid just as she hadn't used one when flying to Yavin IV in the first place on her mission. Spark was doubly glad for that, not wanting to have to destroy the inorganic companion anyway.

_Now…I go forward, find shelter and make plans to actualize…_

A burst of Force use startled the lone Knight though, feeling multiple presences. Her hand drifted to the hilt of her lightsaber even though the sensation wasn't nearby. Spark frowned, trying to zero in on the sensation while remaining undetected herself. Wary after all she had already sensed with the death of the Jedi, she didn't want to walk right into a Force trap of some sort.

The presences however… they were familiar.

_Other Jedi? Alive?_

Spark didn't dare reach out to them actively. If they were Jedi, she reasoned, they'd also seek out the ruins of the old Enclave. And if they weren't Jedi, they might do that too. But if she reached the site first, Spark at least had the hope of defending herself better there.

Masking her presence again, she trudged forward, letting the Force subtly guide her steps.


End file.
